A New Age
- 2012

Background

The Medicare & Retirement division of UnitedHealthcare is the largest U.S. business dedicated to serving the health and wellbeing needs of seniors, touching nearly one-in-five Medicare beneficiaries.

Goals

The client was seeking new ways to advance its expertise, thought leadership and brand presence through mainstream television broadcast content, beyond the scope of direct response television (DRTV) ads. They saw an opportunity to produce educational content around aging and its impact on the healthcare system as a means to get this done. The objective of the project was broad-based education, brand building, thought leadership development and lead generation.

Process

i.e. network engaged in deep segmentation research at UnitedHealthcare to learn the target demographics and understand the audience being sought and where and how to speak with them. Weeks of working to find the right profiles and storylines were followed by three months of shooting across five states.

Results

Using a soft-documentary approach, the half-hour special explored the subject of aging and its impact on the healthcare system. It focused on the tremendous growth of the baby boomer population with profiles including a cross-country daughter/father caregiver relationship, a couple just turning 65 and new to the whole consideration of Medicare and a lively octogenarian with some real insights to share. Further, the program included three commercial breaks for DRTV. In totality, it served as something of an infomercial reimagined to educate and resonate with its audience. i.e. network purchased broadcast time in key markets on primary television stations throughout the southern and east coasts of the U.S.

Lessons Learned

The effort underscored several learnings:

The tremendous value of storytelling by brands in areas where the brands carry considerable expertise.

The advantage of simultaneously leveraging:

The disruption of television broadcasting with commercial distribution opportunities that were not imagined a decade ago

The disruption in healthcare driving home the importance of consumer-centric identity and connection.